Robert Aldrich was born into privilege, but he had pulp in his veins. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller was his cousin, and it was an uncle at Chase National Bank who landed Aldrich a job as an RKO production clerk in 1941. When he began directing his own films just over......

Gender and sexual politics, the lingering power of the color-caste system, critiques of the production and exploitation of the world's black cultures, and the search for a meaningful black "self" beneath it all - these are the issues, themes and marketing hooks that populate this year's Pan African Film Festival......

No one could accuse Gary Oldman of going with the flow. While British working-class film trades in its hereditary gloom - even Ken Loach is making comedies these days - for perky little numbers custom-built for a swift American pickup (Brassed Off, The Full Monty), Oldman's first directing effort hauls......

It was a little like The Twilight Zone," says director Barry Levinson about Bill Clinton's latest sexual red alert. "I came into the kitchen to read the paper, and there's a scandal about a young girl and the White House in it, and the possibility of war with Iraq. I......